Cheap PC for Linux

[P195]

Hi All,

I'm looking to buy a cheap PC to run Linux on for general use (no gaming, video editing or anything intensive).

What would you recommend? Was thinking a cheap mini pc should do the job.

Thanks

 

[Tech Junky]

Any PC can run Linux. Now, if it's BSD based that's a different story.

What are you going to do with it? If it's just playing with the OS you can just run it in a VM instead of a physical box. Even if you wanted to it will run from a USB in "live" mode where it doesn't save settings / changes upon reboot.

 

[nexox]

There are a whole lot of options and most of them are just fine, might be helpful to tell us what you do want to do rather than what you don't plan to do. At the most basic level just get the cheapest complete system with a 64 bit CPU, SSD, and video output that fits your monitor, but if you want to do desktop things like running a web browser you might want a certain amount of RAM and maybe some GPU capabilities, if you plan to compile much then you'll want more CPU.

 

[Peter Blanchard]

There are a whole lot of options and most of them are just fine, might be helpful to tell us what you do want to do rather than what you don't plan to do. At the most basic level just get the cheapest complete system with a 64 bit CPU, SSD, and video output that fits your monitor, but if you want to do desktop things like running a web browser you might want a certain amount of RAM and maybe some GPU capabilities, if you plan to compile much then you'll want more CPU.

I second that but also ask about whether you have other machines and network etc?

 

[P195]

Hi All,

Thank you for your replies.

I went for a Thinkcentre M720Q with i5-8400 / 16GB RAM / 256GB NVMe. It's hopefully arriving today.